RTE, Joe Duffy and Louis Walsh are all facing legal action over last week’s coverage on Liveline of Celtic Talent, a Clonmel model and talent agency that claims it was “savaged” on the radio show.

The agency was accused of encouraging young wannabe celebrities to pay thousands of euros for auditions in America, and accepting money regardless of whether clients were likely to get modelling or acting work.

On Thursday, Walsh is alleged to have made comments on Liveline that suggested Celtic Talent was intentionally misleading clients.

The music impresario has now been warned by the agency’s lawyers that they plan to pursue damages in the courts.

The row erupted on Monday after David Kelly, 20, from Dublin’s inner city, and his mother, who had attended an audition in Clonmel with the agency, phoned Liveline to complain that they had been asked for €6,400 for the agency’s services.

“We went to Clonmel after a first audition in Dublin and didn’t like it, and wanted to hear if anyone else had gone and had a bad time with it,” said Kelly. “We rang up the Joe Duffy show and of course half of Ireland rang in, and the rest is history.”

Celtic Talent auditions for aspiring models and actors around Ireland. If an applicant passes two auditions, they are offered a package costing €6,000 including modelling training and flights to America to the International Modelling and Talent Association (IMTA) conference, where they are introduced to agents from around the world.

Kelly said he couldn’t afford the €6,000 fee and wouldn’t have spent €150 going to Clonmel if he’d been warned about it. “It’s for a bit of training: how to walk, how to stand, how to present yourself, and the trip out to the US with no hotels. It would have cost me a fortune by the time I went, up to

10 grand after hotels and expenses, so no way in hell is it worth it,” he complained.

Following Kelly’s appearance on the show, calls flooded into Liveline with similar complaints about the agency going back more than five years. The show stayed with the topic all week.

Dolores Corcoran, who took over Celtic Talent in late 2004, says that the coverage was biased against both the company and her personally, and she intends to sue the show and Walsh for damages.

She claims the complaints related to a period before she managed the company, but that this point was not stressed on the show. She also accuses Liveline of screening callers and only airing those who had negative comments to make about the agency.

“On Monday they called us about 10 minutes before it was due to be aired and told us it was going to be on,” said Corcoran. “I had meetings all day and didn’t get an opportunity to ring until Tuesday, and that day I really felt was most certainly an absolute horrendous slaughter of Celtic Talent, what we do, and also of myself.

“Damaging things were said and most certainly it will damage the business. People sit up and listen when they hear these kinds of strong comments even if they’re totally untrue,” she added. “I most certainly feel that I wasn’t treated fairly. My competitors were on all week.”

Celtic Talent says its office received 13 calls during Tuesday’s show from mothers and models who had attempted to get through to Liveline in order to make supportive comments on air. They either couldn’t get through or were told they would be called back.

Last week a spokesman for RTE said it couldn’t comment on the claims as they are the subject of a legal suit, but confirmed that legal letters detailing these allegations had been received.

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